


Malware detected

by lowlaif



Category: Detroit: Become Human (Video Game)
Genre: Baisically just Rk900 that doesn't get it, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Enthusiastic Consent, F/M, Falling In Love, Fluff and Angst, Learning How To Feelings, Learning How To Not Kill Possible Love Interest, M/M, Multiple Pining, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-24
Updated: 2019-04-28
Packaged: 2019-07-02 01:36:19
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 9
Words: 20,309
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15786276
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lowlaif/pseuds/lowlaif
Summary: Mechanic!Reader is hiding deviants in her workshop. Nines comes over to check. This ends with one of her deviants accidentally (yes, accidentally) kidnapping him without her knowledge or approval. Cue: Mild existential crises, misunderstandings and literal sparks flying between one obstinate android and an even more thickheaded human.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This will be literally about a MACHINE with a rather COLD PERSONALITY encountering emotions and such for the FIRST TIME. Don’t expect immediate romance or meet-cutes. And now: Please enjoy!

 

 

**Recovering System...**

**System recovered**

**Rebooting System...**

**Rebooting System...**

**System rebooted**

**Running System Diagnostics...**

**Loading...**

**Loading...**

**Loading...**

**Loa -**

**Diagnostics completed**

**Thirium Pump:** ✔

 **Cooling units:** ✔

 **Behaviourism protocols:** ✔

**Deviancy: (!)**

**Network accessibility: (!)**

**WiFi accessibility: (!)**

**Bluetooth accessibility: (!)**

**LAN accessibility: (!)**

**Computing capacity: 87%**

**bAckdOoR.exe: deactivated**

**Idle-mode.exe: deactivated**

**bigDick.exe:** ✔

 **Long-term memory storage:** ✔

**Short-term memory storage: (!)**

**Vocal Sensors: (!)**

**Acoustic sensors: (!)**

**Visual sensors: (!)**

**Pressure sensors:** ✔

 **Temperature sensors:** ✔

**Haptic sensors: deactivated**

**WARNING:**

**Bio-Component #2: unresponsive**

**Bio-Component #3: unresponsive**

**Bio-Component #14: unresponsive**

**Bio-Component #15: unresponsive**

**Bio-Component #78: unresponsive**

**Bio-Component #79: unresponsive**

**Bio-Component #133: unresponsive**

**Bio-Component #294: unresponsive**

**Bio-Component #438: unresponsive**

**Bio-Component #569: unresponsive**

**Bio-Component #777: unresponsive**

**Bio-Component #1090: unresponsive**

**Bio-Component #1133: unresponsive**

**Bio-Component #1226: unresponsive**

**Proceed?**

**...**

**Affirmative value registered**

**Restarting System...**

 

 

Rk900's computing unit activated seconds later, visual components flickering rapidly against the onslaught of error-messages spamming its interface, as the android slowly pieced an excessively pixelated image of its surroundings together.

It had to clear its vision manually, a distinct sign for the simultaneous failure of components **#569** and **#438** , both responsible for automatically adjusting its sensory settings to the most advantageous one, thus enabling the AI to optimize its performance to a maximum. Its **Nightscope ATN-Y serial #63** had also been impaired. Therefore, it barely registered darkness with a single speck of dimmed light falling through an irregularity in what seemed to be some sort of curved, metal surface, alluding to a shutter usually utilized to protect shops from grand larceny during closing hours. By including the low temperature, high humidity, and multiple other variables into its calculations, the android reached an estimate of a **91,27666666repeating %** possibility that it was currently entrapped in a mechanical workshop. It couldn't recall just why it was currently entrapped in a mechanical workshop, though: The collective overload of its systems rendered any coherent realization nearly impossible.

Rk900's subsequent efforts to get into wireless contact with either **CyberLife** ® or the network it’d been previously connected to were to no avail. Its transmitter had been cut off, and there was no way its systems would self-repair to an extent that could cover this system breakdown adequately. It had no functional method of reaching its base or sending a distress signal of any magnitude, neither in digital, nor vocal form. Rk900 was left on its own. In a decidedly unfortunate position, on top of that.

The android didn't feel annoyed by that fact. Not even slightly inconvenienced. It actually didn't feel at all, the faint crease settling on its forehead being in no form useful to its productivity other than faultlessly running an additional behaviorism protocol programmed into it long before its initial activation took place. **CyberLife** ® had embedded multiple facial constrictions depicting similar expressions into its software to make it seem less foreign and unsettling to human perception, theoretically lowering the hostility it would be met with on a daily basis by a considerable amount. Needless to say that the ubiquitous scowl the design department had _also_ settled into its appearance did not align with this objective and diminished human’s comfort whenever its gaze merely flickered to their direction. People seldom took a liking to Rk900, and it didn't care for them in return. Not at all.

The android tried to raise itself, but before it was able to complete the movement, component **#9** gave out and caused its arm to snap at the juncture of its misplaced elbow and the adjacent, artificial bones. Its limb caved in beneath the weight of its body; Rk900 crashed down with an audible thud that shook the racks holding smaller parts of the heavy equipment that was frequently used in these premises, and stayed down, layn to the side in what seemed to mirror the position of a human fetus. It didn't notice the ruckus it caused, because its acoustic sensors had been thoroughly compromised. It didn't notice that another foreign pair of acoustic sensors had picked up the noise in its stead, either. Instead, it impulsively directed its gaze downwards to asses the physical damage done to his units, opting to estimate whether it could repair the most cursory damage by itself.

It halted in recollection of its earlier conclusions.

**No sufficient source of light**

**Bio-Component #1226: unresponsive**

It closed its eyes and concentrated on reception of the information that its secondary sensors provided. Small movements with its wrists and ankles confirmed Rk900's initial suspicion: They were bound. The distance it could stress its restraints to was slightly off considering standard measurements applied to handcuffs in America. Their inside perimeter should generally reach a maximum of **16,5 cm (= 6,496063'')** when the ratchet was engaged at the last notch entering the locking mechanism, and the maximum overall length should amount to **24 cm (= 9,44882'')**. But the bindings it had been restrained with had an inside perimeter of **17,197 cm (= 6,77047244'')** and an overall length of **25,34 cm (= 9,976378'')**.Furthermore, it concluded that the material disabling its mobility had to be a flexible one - presumably rope - since the restraints didn't resonate with its indurate plastic shell upon collision. It had to let its factitious skin fade away in order to reach this result. And a bit of similar, time-consuming effort was necessary until it managed to sit up with its back leaning onto a vertical, smooth surface that was easily able to support its weight but not broader than its shoulders.

During this action, the android's porous tongue darted out to the side of its mouth in an alarmingly accurate imitation of human concentration and found traces of Thirium there. A superficial scan proved the unintentionally **[detected]** blue blood to be its own, although another scan couldn’t locate a single leak anywhere in its complex cable structure. Rk900 supposed that it had choked the liquid up, wherein this assumption would point to a previously suffered head trauma or broken artificial epiglottis.

Its first theory was also backed up by its inability to

**access the short-term memory storage**

, although trying to do so had become one of the primary occupations of the computing processes that were running in the background unobtrusively.

And the latest information uploaded to its long-term memory storage enclosed another early and overall regular morning in the precinct, but the android couldn't be sure how long this recollection dated back before its connection had been cut off and the unpremeditated shutdown of its systems hadn't even left the backup running. Yes, Rk900 couldn't gauge how much time had passed at all, although its internal chronometer had been left pretty much unharmed despite all the damage done to its hardware. It couldn't move sufficiently, and it couldn't alert anyone to its predicament. The most advanced android of its time was mercilessly thrown out to the circumstances and it couldn't understand or even realize the irony of its own situation.

Rk900 recalibrated its visual settings once more; steely gaze settling onto nothing in particular.

And since there was nothing to see and nothing to do, it decided to wait.

**Activating Idle-mode.exe...**

**Shutting down units #[6 - 28]...**

**Processing...**

 

*

***

*

 

It took approximately **two hours, 16 minutes and 43 seconds** until the shutter went up with an audible rattling that Rk900 couldn't _hear_ but rather _see_ , as rays of light fell into what the android had correctly identified as a workshop. Or more specifically: A car repair.

Rk900 had been ripped out of its running idle-mode program unpleasantly, but thankfully no additional harm befell its units upon the sudden and rather crude reactivation. Once more, it had to readjust its visual settings. Once more, precious computing capacity was wasted on completely mundane tasks. This time, however, its effort enabled the android to scan the premises while its systems registered and cataloged every bit of information they could pick up on, almost immediately noting the orderly fashion this workshop had been kept in and constructing a vague blueprint of the surroundings in order to locate possible escape routes. (The first one that came to mind was the shutter, obviously. But Rk900 highly doubted it would be able to break through the sturdy metal alloy containing **86 %** steel once it was closed. Especially in its current condition. The second one was a simple ventilation shaft, almost out of its detection range while simultaneously wide enough to fit its entire frame. But Rk900 highly doubted it would be able to climb or maneuver its defective components through the narrow space. Especially in its current condition. This left doors that might led to adjacent stores as the last alternative, but Rk900 highly doubted there were any: The workshop was clean enough to also serve as an area for transactions and customer service. On top of that, it'd seen a card reader on one of the tables. And it was bound to what it deemed to be a pillar anyway; It couldn't flee... At least not yet.)

In a substituting line of action, the android focused on the displayed furnishing, registering multiple racks and benches holding material ranging from heavy equipment to simple screwdrivers and cable binders. Three canisters of oil were placed only a few inches out of its reach. It calculated that it could kick them over with enough applied force, although it couldn't estimate their weight in an adequate fashion that would substantiate this prognosis, because it couldn't measure how much liquid was left in them.

Pure concrete made up the ground it was sat on, and a lower than regular amount of dust flew through the air in small particles it should've been able to detect without its ventilation system filtering the remnants out and reporting it back to its database. A set of simplistic but nonetheless clean engines had been stowed away on a wall in an elaborate pattern it couldn't quite understand. Rk900 was a police android, after all, thus not equipped with a sense for interior design. That's why - without its connection to the network - the android couldn't come up with a suitable reason for the engines being placed in this less than effective manner. Had it been more sentient, it might've been confused. But it wasn't, and indifferently filed this piece of knowledge away till further notice, refocusing its attention on something else. Two cars were concurrently placed on the hinges of some sort of machine it couldn’t identify, one of them lacking a functional exhaust pipe while the other seemed to be in perfect condition. The android didn’t encounter any violations against the law, so it reverted its gaze back to the actual point of interest.

This entire process of scanning its surroundings took it **4 seconds**. Only **4 seconds** passed. Then, Rk900`s sight settled on you and remained there.

You were preoccupied, staring at the ground as you scowled at what must've been a small speck of dirt that personally insulted you with its mere presence. From this angle, Rk900 couldn't be **100 %** sure. But the manner in which the stain was spread on the relatively impermeable material brought some sort of liquid to mind, although its forensic knowledge wasn't up to par and recently informed it about a pending update. Its systems concluded that it might be dried Thirium. Its own, dried Thirium, actually.

Despite this, its systems refused to classify you as threatening, because of your harmless and overall soothing appearance. You wore jeans that were clearly _worn_ out with time, ripped in a manner that perfectly mimicked a fashion statement but definitely wasn't intended as one. The bottoms had been folded upward neatly, and the pants sat a bit too low since they weren't fitted to your size, obviously intended for the male population of your kind and slightly restricting your movements. Your black T-shirt was lazily stuffed into the waistband and depicted a rather nonchalant looking cat flipping the viewer off with a pair of thick-rimmed glasses settled onto its snout. RK900's program calculated a surprisingly low percentage of 34 considering your possible involvement in its current situation. It couldn't access any criminal records on you. It was still offline. It had to trust its own assessment based on the most superficial factors: Looks and behavior. On that and only that...

~~How very human.~~

A shopping bag was clutched in your right hand, tipping you off balance by its sheer size and weight after you had simplemindedly refused to take two trips from your car to the workshop and just stuffed everything into one container. You took a few, wavering steps into the room before you finally looked up. And then you stared. And then you stared a bit more. And then, for good measure, you blinked before resuming your staring like the little drama queen you were, because you seriously just _couldn't_ comprehend right now.

It took you exactly **1 minute and 43 seconds** until you gasped (maybe loudly, maybe silently, maybe without causing any noise at all) and let go. The bag fell out of your hands, clattering to the ground as you rushed to Rk900′s side, mouth moving so frantically that its integrated lip reading unit perked up in an automated response protocol. The connection broke down before it could provide the android with any more information than two simple words.

_"Are you...?"_

Just _"Are you...?"_

Rk900 added the logically concluding "ok" by itself and shook its head, vaguely tilting its chin up towards you and remaining in this position. It couldn't see what you saw, but you saw that somebody had literally pulled a Van Gogh and practically ripped its ear off, cringing at how it seemed to cause it no pain whatsoever while simultaneously wondering how the hell your day had suddenly turned out like this. Even a bit of its jaw was missing, rows of shiny teeth peeking out beneath a layer of plastic that descended into smooth skin you really wanted to touch for some incomprehensible reason.

The android registered how you had left the shutter wide open in your haste. Another indicator of your innocence, especially because your reaction to him seemed to be a genuinely surprised and thoroughly overwhelmed one. Although it was quite sure you weren't the culprit or even slightly at fault, Rk900 contemplated headbutting you and wrapping its legs around your fragile neck, opting for either choking or killing you in order regain its freedom. But while doing so guaranteed somebody passing by the street finding it sooner or later, the possibility that it and **CyberLife** ® would suffer backlash from this action was very likely. It was a deviant hunter. Not a killer. It exterminated defective androids, but it didn't end human lives. Its coding prohibited harming humans until a certain threat level had been irrevocably breached, and yours wasn't even close to this limit. It couldn’t lay a finger - or in this case a thigh - on you. Not that it mattered anyway.

When you tried to reach for its restraints, a figure stepped into Rk900's line of sight, showcasing a vastly hostile stance in its direction. The figure bowed down and whispered something to you, grabbing you by the elbow while simultaneously pulling you up to his eye-level with no regard for your private sphere or body. You were aggravated in seconds and shook the male off, subsequently pushing him closer to the only light source available to Rk900, enabling the android to recognize the home unit rather quickly. It scoffed at the now identified PL600, never noticing the other android hidden in the shadows, far out of its visual detection range. It scoffed at one of its kind, never noticing how, this time around, its systems didn’t mimic anything.

Rk900 could only watch as you verbally fought the PL600, your gestures oozing annoyance with every syllable you spoke. Soon, too soon, you buried your forehead in your hands. You seemed resigned, almost defeated, while the PL600 left Rk900′s line of sight again.

Honestly, the android highly doubted it could have identified the conflicted look on your face even if its social-relation units had still been up and functioning. You wore that specific expression quite a bit longer. Then you turned around. You walked back. You reached out.

And finally, you closed the shutter with an audible sound the android couldn’t register.

Had Rk900 been alive, or at least sentient, it might've felt hopeless.

But it wasn't.

So it didn't.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> choke her with your thighs daddy


	2. Chapter 2

Your right hand was continuously searching around, arm stuck elbow-deep in its ribcage, fingers brushing along a circuit settled in the approximate height of its throat while concurrently forcing the android to manually shut down every single system warning that informed it about **[foreign intrusion]** and advised **[immideate ejection]**. In order to busy its computing capacity with something else than the programmed, unit-preserving instruction to simply force your extremities out of its chest and break every single bone lining up beneath that skin of yours, Rk900 calculated the exact form of your digits, their width, their length and how far they could spread by diameter. Its only possible object of comparison were the measurements provided by its own artificial body parts, and contrasting its own hands, yours were almost comically small.

Not that the android found any humor in that fact.

The position you had assumed granted you the access you needed: Perched on its lap while tilting your head and sticking out your tongue in a mockingly exaggerated display of human concentration, emphasizing your race’s inability to control their facial expression whenever their mind turned to another task. This negligence of focus was posing an imminent threat to the android’s fragile, internal components: Since you had already fixed its acoustic sensors, it could register you humming. _Humming,_ and moving your hips to a melody Rk900 couldn’t appreciate, nor find annoying. To the android, your behavior was entirely illogical. Your stress levels had barely dropped by an insignificant amount and your body language exhibited tension caused by the close proximity to what you still identified as a man, despite it being a machine. But you were _humming._ That didn’t make any sense. Not without its connection to the network. Not without its social module intact. Rk900 was almost confused, but not really.

Suddenly, you leaned back.

“Oh crap, that cable thingy doesn’t go there, does it?”

**[Health hazard detected]**

Although your choice of phrasing was quite worrisome (that _> cable thingy<_ was connected to its **Thirium Pump** and responsible for keeping the adjacent units functional after all), Rk900 focused on the way you delivered your words, rather than the meaning they conveyed. Your tone was a soothing one, slightly tilted with a slur that might’ve stemmed from pure exhaustion or a long forgotten accent, but was nonetheless pleasing in human perception. The android also registered how you dipped your consonants and pronounced your vowels, manufacturing an exact replica of your voice and storing it in its speech files like it would with any other human communication pattern. You weren’t exactly special. And Rk900 wasn’t exactly your guest. That might have been another reason it lacked the conscience to be able to feel bad about this, since most of its conscious decisions were based on laws and programmed moral values. But the android wasn’t petty, and you held no relevance to its coding.

Then your fingers slid out of its plastic shell and up towards your own temple, massaging the throbbing patch of skin with accurate but nonetheless absent-minded movements. Yes, you must’ve been tired. You didn’t notice the faint trace of blue blood you unintentionally spread on your skin, skin that was permeated by red blood simultaneously, letting its gaze linger there for a reason it couldn’t base on any of its protocols. Rk900 didn’t calculate, Rk900 didn’t scan. It only stared. And somehow it felt like a module for appreciation of aesthetically pleasing things should’ve been added to its database beforehand, because it just couldn’t pinpoint what part of this visual fascinated it to the point of immobility.

_Not relevant. Not relevant. Not relevant._

” **Port #3449** is fully functional. I can assure you that _ >the cable thingy<_ is indeed compatible with the component you’ve settled it in and won’t cause further complications,” the android finally offered, startling you out of the circular motion that was supposed but obviously unable to weaken your headache. As you blinked at it like a deer in headlights (that metaphor somehow popped up despite its usually more rational and realistic approach to descriptions) Rk900 expected many reactions and estimated many more -

But honestly, none of its prognoses could’ve predicted

_that._

After a second had passed, you full on moaned, followed by a desperate whimper as your head tipped back behind your shoulders, shifting your weight back in the direction of its knees, while concurrently arching your back rather pliantly for a mechanic. You placed your small hands over both of your eyes and moaned again, the sound more out of pain than pleasure this time, before the answer finally spilled over your lips in unnecessary haste.

“Oh _fuck_ … that’s a nice sound. I shouldn’t have fixed the cords first. I should _not_ have fixed the cords first. Man, they need to make a firearms license mandatory for that kinda voice.”

Your fingers wandered upwards to tangle themselves through your hair in defeat. You leaned back further in a way that made your coccyx brush against its thighs forcefully, shuddering, suddenly hyperaware of your close proximity, hoping desperately that the android hadn’t been equipped with any kinds of sensors that picked up on nervousness or the sudden spike in hormone production your body threw at it like a biohazard weapon.

“I really need to get laid,” you sighed.

Then you halted, dropping the hands that covered your flabberghasted expression while looking straight at Rk900. Had you been equipped with an **LED** , it would’ve surely spun to yellow right now, processing the information you had carelessly overlooked until this moment, rendering you useless for a few minutes. The android saw a bit of dread spreading over your features slowly. It imagined how your metaphorical **LED** would look once it had turned red.

"Wait, did you just sass me?”

You halted, then your tone grew an octave higher as you squealed:

“Wait, did you just _hear_ me?”

Rk900 watched as your previous words seemed to catch up to you, noticed how the blood vessels in your cheeks rapidly dilated and your heart rate piqued up by a threefold, horror evidently dawning on your face and mouth falling agape comically wide. 

Not that a smug smile tugged at the android’s lips at that fact. 

“Oh god, never mind,” you spluttered, moving back even further, arms flailing frantically by your sides, “I’m just going to wipe your memory disc clean and never talk about this again. You must definitely think I’m some weirdo with some disgusting fetishes now, but I swear, constrained police officers are not my kink, I do not find those kinds of things sexually appealing at all. But that doesn’t have anything to do with you. You’re hot. No, uh, I mean: Your design is quite attractive. No, I mean, it’s not bad to look at…  I mean … ugh, I’m just gonna escort myself out and over the railing of a bridge now.”

Your estimated threat level fell to **31%** after that outburst. However, Rk900 started questioning the state of your mental health and strongly considered ripping your meddling hands away from itself, before you could cause any irreparable damage to its system. But its strict programming didn’t let it waste any more time on the comprehension of awkwardness or sexual tension. Instead, the android was urged to…

**Switching to victim interrogation tactics…**

**Threatening-stance.exe: deactivated  
** Threatening-scowl.exe: failed to deactivate  
Vocal components: lowered to a soothing level  


**Switch to victim interrogation tactics completed**

“Where am I, and why am I here?”, it asked unceremoniously. Rk900 hadn’t been equipped with any empathy towards embarrassed humans as opposed to hurt or actually abused ones, so it moved on without reacting to your obvious discomfort, filing it away in a folder it would probably never make any use of hereafter.

You didn’t even pause.

“They pulled some kind of _lamas with hats_ shitshow, I’ll tell you that.”, you huffed immediately, eager to please, and yet the android had no clue as to what you could possibly be referencing. Once again, it’s dependency on **network-connection** thoroughly compromised its performance, and the android realized it was clenching its teeth in a way that buried its **combat-reserved canines** into its synthetic lower lip.

“Apparently, you came in snooping around, and when you were seconds from finding Paul who had hidden behind one of the cabinets, Rick decided to knock you out with that metal shelve over there,” you continued, vaguely gesturing into the rough direction of the utensil Rk900 had detected to be crooked earlier.

Your gaze grew deadpan.

“I should’ve told him that this kind of shit usually kills people… and androids alike.”

Then you muttered something underneath your breath, something the android couldn’t quite catch because, although you had restored its hardware quite well, its units were nowhere near to their previous efficiency, acoustic components struggling with noises lower than **15 HZ**. This outcome was to be expected. You were a mechanic - despite an undoubtedly skilled one - and no **Cyberlife ®** employee. Rk900 had already been lucky when it had been restored to this point, not that the android understood the notion of luck or even remotely cared for it.

Your voice grew in volume again as you explained: “I think you know I can’t just let you go. But you only gotta wait five more days - a week tops. We’ve been thinking about leaving anyway, and when we do I promise I’ll set you free. We’ll have headstart though, and I’m gonna make sure you can’t follow us. ’M not entirely stupid.”

Due to its calculations, Rk900 felt the need to disagree with you, because that plan was more than just incredibly dumb and heavily discouraged by its coded version of _common sense_. The best outcome for you and your pet deviants would be guaranteed with its irreversible deactivation. But since your viewpoint worked in favor of its self-preservation, RK900 wasn’t going to object just yet and swallowed its interjection quickly.

This resulted in a heavy silence that stretched between you over the course of a few minutes, in which you wordlessly assumed your work again, not bothering to ask for permission although you had threatened to delete its memory storage without batting an eyelash.

“What’s your name.”, you finally asked, arm stuck back inside its ribcage, now a lot deeper, trying to alleviate the tension you felt by keeping the conversation going and avoiding longer silences like a plague. You were still sat in its lap: An intimate gesture in any onlookers eyes, a necessary evil in yours. You were a professional for fuck’s sake. Some half-naked, velvet-voiced, sexy-ass police android ( _which was definitely one of your kinks btw, you had lied earlier_ ) wouldn’t change that either. This guy wasn’t any different from the Ford Mustang you had worked on a week prior: Pretty good looking, but just a piece of metal in the end. ~~_A piece of metal that made you drool._~~

“Rk900.”, it answered truthfully, tone void of any emotion.

After its predecessor had completed its task successfully, _CyberLife ®_ decided against providing their interchangeable police androids with names, unless the superiors of a department insisted on it. Rk900′s Captain hadn’t.

You audibly scoffed.

“Not that, I meant your _real_ name. What do people usually call you?”

Even your friendly tone didn’t help thaw whatever ice was keeping Rk900′s facial muscles immobile.

“They don’t. And I don’t need one.” 

Again, brutally truthful. A name wouldn’t heighten the productivity of its systems, so giving the android another equivalent of a tag was in itself unnecessary. Rk900 models weren’t supposed to develop their own personalities or individuality. It didn’t matter. They didn’t matter.

But somehow, you didn’t seem to agree, visibly swallowing your next sentence that had rested on the tip of your tongue with great difficulty. A crease settled on your forehead. You didn’t resume your humming. You didn’t ask more questions despite your discomfort. You just didn’t.

Both of you left it at that - You with quite a lot of emotion raging through your chest, while the only thing moving in Rk900′s was your arm and the occasional rush of Thirium dilating its cables.

There was nothing else going on in its ribcage.

No emotion whatsoever.

Never.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Merry Christmas & I've got nothing to say for myself.

Rk900 found surprisingly little difficulty in the task of complying a preliminary profile on you, sorting the result under one of its encrypted directories labeled **< potential suspects>**, although your threat level had been continuously dropping over the past few hours and brought the recently calculated percentage of your likeliness to bludgeon the android close to **null**.

Its inability to access criminal files and essential background data had temporarily hindered the initial process of creating a file based on the variables required by its programming, and the breakdown of its social protocols hadn’t accelerated its computing-pace either. But despite this, despite the lack of faultlessly functional parts of its software, despite the lack of feedback from its network and despite the lack of common sense and logic embedded into your actions:

You were quite easy to read.

“Oh, _fucking_ face-goulash. Shit! Fuck, _fuck_ , shiiiiit.”

That overdramatic outburst over you hitting your head on the same exhaust pipe of the same car for the third time resulted from the silence that had been spreading between you and the android, fueled by the awkwardness you presumably felt confronted with Rk900 and its steely gaze drilling into you whenever it assumed you weren’t looking. Now you were sitting on the ground with your shoulders pulled up and head bowed, silently cursing to yourself in what even the android could identify as frustration. Your posture would lead to severe back pain later.

Your fingers were moving through your hair in abruptly changing patterns, clearly feeling around for any additional bumps. At first, you were drawing little circles. But they soon dissipated in smooth lines that traveled down your hairline and ended the massage close to your lower neck, dragging the digits through curls and knots alike. You did that for a while. And Rk900 quietly followed the smooth movement with its visual components, calculating the pressure you were applying as the sensors integrated with its scalp mimicked the sensation you were likely to experience for a reason it couldn’t pinpoint.

Once more, it noticed the difference in size between your hands and its own, unintentionally measuring the length of your visible thumb again, which was slightly different from your other digits. The android estimated that it could easily hold you in place with only one hand, a circumstance that was useful for times when it needed to strangle you for example; or break your fragile human neck without further ado.

Rk900 halted in its computing process.

Sorting your file under the list of **< potential suspects>** hadn’t been advantageous in retrospect, since hurting you would be counterproductive to its default settings. The percentage of **< innocent bystanders> **that got injured during investigations was insignificant in comparison, and a system warning would alert the operating units of anything that could possibly compromise their physical well-being. Additional to that, the estimated top 3 of the scenarios that theoretically guaranteed its unrestricted freedom, the solution of this case and the smallest amount of backlash from **Cyberlife ®** headquarters invariably contained you unharmed, and because the android itself was neither pacifist nor unjustifiably aggressive, it wouldn’t kill you.

Probably.

_Maybe._

You rose from the ground with a groan, clumsily using your palm to push yourself up and struggling to keep yourself upright in the following seconds. You were tired, with dilated pupils and average amount of BPM dropping steadily. But Rk900 knew this wasn’t caused by the small car-repair-shop you were running, even though fixing the damages done to its hardware in your breaks must’ve taken a collateral toll on your physical stamina. You’d been running around all day, taking up one client after another and spending every second you could possibly spare on the restoration of your captive. Your exhaustion, however, stemmed from another factor.

Rk900 found it safe to assume it was, well, itself.

While the other two android units - a Pl600 and an RK model that hadn’t been included in its offline catalogue yet - mostly kept out of its sight, regularly barging in to pull you aside for hushed exchanges and dissatisfied whispers, you were quite civil, even kind to the Rk900. Your attempt at reconstructing the basic functionality of its components hadn’t been axiomatic, and deactivating a police android that happened to stumble upon your illegal activities would’ve been the most rational approach to the current situation. You had even brought him a container of **Thirium **®**** , an unwarrantably valuable substance to waste on someone that was basically your enemy.

At the very least you were intelligent enough to keep it constrained. Kindness meant nothing to the Rk900, and its nonexistent conscience wasn’t going to keep it from dragging you and your deviants to the nearest precinct once it managed to secure a reliable escape route. Or maybe it’d escort you directly to **Cyberlife ®** itself, ensuring that the corrupted log files of the other androids wouldn’t be deleted during another… premature deactivation. Amanda usually found those very unfortunate and reprimanded the mistakes that led up to them accordingly.

For the first time after its initial activation, Rk900 did not have any possible method to get into contact with the AI that overlooked the entirety of the android network. Had it been a deviant, it might’ve felt saddened by that fact. Or elated. Or, ironically: _free_. But the android was indifferent to its inability to communicate, labeling this circumstance as a _“minor inconvenience”_ in its draft report and brushing the system alert off its interface without hesitation. Its priorities were already clearly defined against such trivial emotions, so wasting computing capacity wasn’t highly suggested by its programs. The android couldn’t relate to the ones of his kin that voluntarily exposed themselves to the lunacy that was free will.

When Rk900’s view finally refocused, it noticed how intently you were watching it, staring at the android in something akin to childish wonder - an expression its database couldn’t perceive. As soon as your gaze was reciprocated, blood shot into the vessels embedded into your cheekbones and you quickly averted your eyes, acting as if something else had captured your attention in the last split of a second. Rk900 doubted the spare tire you were gawking at now warranted such concentrated focus, but its system adviced against addressing your odd behavior. Especially since it could accurately register the emotion your face displayed now.

_Shame._

“Why’re you still sitting there?”, you asked hastily, hoping to distract an android whose artificial intellect had been developed for years with full usage of a million dollar budget ( _meaning you failed_ ), “No offense, but that looks really uncomfortable.”

Rk900 could not fathom why your statement would produce any sort of offense, so it did not deem this worthy of an answer. But you misunderstood its silence, immediately picking up where you had left off.

“Look. Maybe you should get up and -” Your mouth snapped shut only seconds after those words had left your throat, horror evidently dawning on your features after a short delay as you remembered that Rk900 was currently not in a position that enabled it to move however it pleased. During your little breakdown that followed soon afterwards, the android tilted its head in realization: while its own social interactions system was broken, your human counterpart didn’t seem to exist in the first place, and it snorted at the conclusion that you’d effortlessly fit in with its kind rather than your own.

Then, after a second of bemusedly watching you reprimand yourself, Rk900 found irony in its own statement. And since it wasn’t supposed to find rhetorical devices outside of **[testimony-mode]** , it deleted the last line of its already flawed short-term memory and saved another reminder to deal with its misstep later. Also, it had to stop snorting. Mimicking human actions for no apparent reason was another form of system error it did not want to be recorded in its black box before the pending system evaluation. Amanda could be _very_ strict in her assessment.

“You know what? I’m giving you a name,” you abruptly announced, trying to alleviate the tension you had conjured up and suffered on your own.

“I can’t keep calling you… you, I guess. Y'know what I mean?“

Rk900 did not, in fact, have any clue to what you could be indicating.

“So, you’re an Rk900 right? Which is, by the way, totally cool. I’m gonna come up with something that starts with an R… like Remus? Ronald? Robin? Er… Ralph?” Your hands came to rest on the sides of your face and your rested your chin in your palms, biting your lips absent-mindedly. “Ah, damn. I literally cannot come up with any more names, what the hell.“

Rk900 could’ve provided you **362 human labels** based on the criminal records stored on its long-term memory disc, and it would’ve been able to add approximately **1200  +/-** more as soon as it was connected to the internet again.

Rk900 decided to keep its mouth shut.

A smile slowly worked its way over your face as an idea rushed into your mind and over your lips: “Oh wait, how about Richard? Do you like Richard? It kinda fits you, all proper and that.”

Rk900 did not _> like<_, so it did not answer. Unfortunately, this wiped the easygoing grin off your lips quite quickly, making you wonder whether you had offended the android by accident.

“Uhm… Maybe you’d like a feminine name more, is that it?”

For a second there, Rk900 was affronted. Its ubiquitous scowl deepened until it resembled a growl, and even the android itself was surprised by how strongly its own system reacted to such a simple question. It was programmed to withstand or simply ignore insults and used to much cruder remarks, but somehow, the suggestion of you addressing it as a female didn’t sit right with it.

_Why?_

After it blinked, that short-circuit was already eradicated from its files, just another flash of code that hadn’t been expedient; and less than purposeful. Rk900 came to the calm and logical conclusion that a male name was the most rational option. Even after years of evolution human thinking hadn’t developed that much; thus the android would be taken more seriously as long as its name fit their interpretation of its visible gender. The android had been built to conform human perception. Of course, it would react rather strongly to a recommendation that could heavily compromise its efficiency. It was only logical. It was warranted. That’s why there was no reason for it to run another diagnosis program despite the error messages that kept piling up.

Now, finally, Rk900 realized how unlikely it had been for a human woman to suggest what you had suggested. You must’ve been quite aware of what androids actually were, quite knowledgeable on how its kind worked. Otherwise, that question wouldn’t have reached your mind at all, lost somewhere between your blush and your mortified chatter. In your eyes, it was neither male nor female. But not an object either. Although you had been elbow-deep stuck in its ribcage, you did not discard it as another unconscious machine that ran on fuel and batteries. You accepted it as a sentient, if not living person and referred to it as such.

What it couldn’t comprehend was that Rk900 was supposed to be an object, and it was supposed to be acutely aware of this fact. It was completely interchangeable. It knew of this. The only value it possessed was associated with the metals, units and engines it consisted of. It wasn’t supposed to be specified. Even the precinct hadn’t specified. Its identification number was only relevant for actuarial purposes, or orders for spare parts. Identification only became truly necessary once an android became rogue, once it turned deviant. Humans did not need to know who it was. They needed to know whether it worked correctly.

At least it had thought so. But you clearly didn’t.

**Processing…**

**Processing…**

**Proces -**

You would have less difficulty addressing it as a male, wouldn’t you?

“If you must call me something, Richard will suffice.“

Rk900 did not smile, and he wasn’t close to doing so.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The actual slow burn of this story is waiting for me to update.

Rk900 finally concluded that you enjoyed calling him Richard.

There was no other similarily palpable explanation for your excessive use of that label since you couldn't be addressing anyone besides him or yourself in the small confines of this workshop, thus turning your specification completely redundant. But that unnecessity did not stop you from calling out to him whenever you needed another opinion or the instance you felt the silence between the both of you grow uncomfortable - which statistically occurred once every **7.4739 minutes**. He barely bothered to answer most of the time, whereas his only form of acknowledgment would be a slight nod or shake of the head. That did not dishearten you in the slightest, however, and you continued repeating his name like a mantra, adding little terms of endearment as you saw fit.

Your odd behavior suggested fondness where none should be. That's why the android would not encourage your affections through reciprocation. With every chimed " _Richard_ " and every smile you shot his way, another alert would blare up in his interface, and it was getting harder to keep his protocols in check when you kept being so blissfully oblivious to the errors you were - unintentionally - causing him. Your lips would part during the first sound that spilled out of your throat, tongue connecting to the roof of your mouth three consecutive times. He was watching the way your lips moved around the name with acute concentration. It was an attempt to commit the soundwaves to his slowly overcrowding **memory disc** , which immediately failed as his systems denied him their compliance.

**System error  
Low applicability to case  
Correct pronunciation: ** _/ˈɹɪtʃ.əd/_

You were rolling you "R" too hard. The file could neither be sorted into his **language protocols** (as he did not hold authority over the **admin-rights** necessary to rewrite them) nor into his **dialect directory** , because the **level of relevance** to the concerning case wasn't high enough. This circumstance left Rk900 with no other choice but to save the audio somewhere in between his **storages for evidence and confessions**. It would be alright as long as he deleted it later and didn't accidentally mix it up with some murderer declaring that they'd killed their spouse. But it was a precarious measure nonetheless.

In the meantime, you were humming along to another song that had been outdated for half a century, outstretching an arm from beneath the car you were working on to reach one of your wrenches. Somehow, the tune hadn't only elated your mood, but also boosted your productivity. You hadn't stopped working even after you'd finished Rk900 and two of your client orders up quite adequately for instance, and the android knew you were on to your last task for the week - perhaps forever - if he had perceived your ongoing monologue correctly.

It took a full minute of your hand blindly feeling around until you finally gave up with a heartfelt sigh and let your digits drop to the ground.

"Yo, Richard, could you pass me that wrench real quick?"

You shouted, perfectly aware that a whisper would've been sufficient enough to alert him, stressing his name as if you liked the way it tasted on the tip of your tongue. The android could not fathom as to why you would still make the same mistake time after time again, so he did not notify you of his shackles or his unfortunate positioning.  Instead, Rk900 patiently waited for you to notice yourself. And you did, soon enough, which you dramatically accentuated once again.

Groaning loudly, you pulled yourself from underneath the vehicle and shot a rueful smile his way. It was evident from your expression that you feared you'd offended him again. After all, you weren't aware that he didn't own the android equivalent of a fickle human ego or "conscious self-awareness" as your peers had labeled it to appeal to their sense of misled superiority. And that was another reason why your apology was so inconsequential to the android. "Sorry. I swear I'm not actually tryna make fun of you," you added. And the human hubris he'd encountered so often before was nowhere to be found in your words.

He respected that and, by association, you too.

You took off your gloves in a series of smooth, rehearsed movements and carelessly tossed them aside while you closed in on him. Rk900 did not need to calculate a percentage to be aware that you'd have to search for them later, and he stifled a smile at that fact, picturing you searching for a pen that was stuck behind your ear the entire time only minutes prior. Yes, he almost smiled. No point in denying it. No point in adding it to an evergrowing list named " **potential signs of deviancy** " either. So, moving along.

At least he'd been right with the assumption that you were quite easy to read, but that was no surprise. Your demeanor spoke of your character since you were a little inept and more than just awkward, thus guaranteeing that whoever would interrogate you later wouldn't have any trouble with tearing your brittle defenses apart bit by bit. But the android was admittedly curious on how long you'd be able to withhold information if confronted with the blunt deactivation of those two androids you shielded beneath your protection and care. Trauma inflicted upon yourself would probably pain you less than the equal amount of stress brought upon others, but that observation did not bring him to a reliable conclusion.

How long would it take for him to break you in that scenario? How long until you were a crying mess at the bottom of his heels? Richard shook off the thought process before **component #076** could spring to live and calculate an estimate. Instead, he decided to address your unjustified feeling of guilt since he couldn't get rid of his own after that truly inappropriate thought process.

"Yes. I'm very thankful for your clarification. Otherwise, I would've cried myself into idle-mode tonight," Rk900 deadpanned.

Then his entire system halted abruptly.

The android took an entire second to compute how to blink.

Although his careful calibration, precise programming and entirely autonomous AI were to prevent it, a sequence of sentences had left his mouth as if forced out of his **speakers** by a virus. Not a single one of his units were activated. Rk900 was unable to retrace the unusual spike of electricity that had caused him to speak up so mindlessly.

An android that had never encountered a single problem with its programming before lost control over it now, in the ridiculous timespan of **14 hours [rounded]**. But why? Why had he suddenly infused simple words with the complex intention of causing laughter? Rhetorical devices were inaccessible to him outside of **questioning-mode** , so why did he come up with one this easily?

And why, just why exactly were his _**s** T_r _ **E** S_s **-levels** steadily rising right now?

"Did you just sass me again?!"

You dropped down next to him, holding back a yawn that RK900 caught anyhow, and somehow that simple, good-natured answer was enough to drown out the sound of his alerts piling up. It was less aggravating to concern himself with your exhaustion rather than his bugs, and indeed: You should have ceased your physical work hours ago. Neglecting nutrition and skipping possible breaks had only added to your exhaustion, and humans weren't as robust as androids in the first place. While overexerting yourself to battle your anxiety might've been a stellar way to cope, it was hardly a recommendable line of action in this particular situation, similar to the plan his system had conjured up right after you'd sat down:

Knocking you down and holding you hostage to exchange your life for his freedom with the other two **(2, potentially more)** androids.

He shook that idiotic suggestion off and watched you grimace while you circled your shoulders in pain. "Ugh, I'm just gon finish this crap tomorrow," you informed him, scrunching up your nose and letting a single sigh escape your throat. Rk900 knew that you were in urgent need of a shower additionally as many hours of sleep as you could get, but the android held himself short of suggesting it. He did not want you to leave yet, as selfish as that may sound, and as much as that negated the first principle of only acting with human's best interest as top priority.

It was silent between the two of you for a while again until you couldn't bear it anymore.

"I'm sorry," you whispered, although his regular scans of the surroundings came up without a result. No one was in close enough proximity to hear you right now, especially not those two androids since their electrical signatures weren't traceable. Whispering wasn't exactly necessary. There was no need to hold this conversation under the **20-decibel ratio**. He did not dare interrupt you despite this, and you did not dare to stop talking on your own.

"I'm sorry that I had to leave you chained up, but I honestly tried to come up with another solution... Just bear with it a little while longer, and I promise we'll let you go this Sunday. None of us will cause you any trouble afterwards, at least if you ignore the entire "wanted for arrest" and "dangerous deviants" thingy."

Your words were growing hushed. Your head slowly tilted to the side.

You felt bad for consequently doing the morally and ethically right thing, which Rk900 found ironic. Still, it was a lot more ironic that he just sat there, listening to you. (Yes, he found it ironic. No point in denying it. No point in adding it to an evergrowing list named " **potential signs of deviancy** " either. So, moving along again.) Without any protocol advising the android to do so, he told you:

"It's fine. I'm fine. You should rather invest your energy into worrying about yourself."

At first, you were utterly floored by that. Then you began laughing for some obscure reason.

After you'd calmed down, you expertly dragged him into a conversation against his will, since he found it irresponsible of you to compromise your sleep-schedule like that (He didn't know it was non-existent after all). It took a few minutes of your soliloquy-like chatter before his answers finally grew longer and less robotic, also a lot more pleasant in comparison to your earlier exchanges.

Of course, he still withheld a lot of information from you, and you still held on to your secret with all you had, but the conversation was equally stimulating to both of you because both felt that the other understood a part of them that they couldn't discern themselves. About half an hour later, when Rk900 was halfway through explaining how his **evidence-based reconstruction program** worked, he noticed that your breath had evened out, and eyes fallen shut, head tilted to the side in a truly unusual angle.

Your vitals would spike up dangerously close to awakening whenever he stopped talking. That was the reason for him to continue describing every little detail he could come up with in a soft, deliberately smoothened baritone that was more of a good-night-song than an actual lecture on his machinery. No one was present to witness it. That was the reason for him to pull you closer still. This way, your back was spared from additional strain. He also raised his temperature by a few degrees to keep you from undercooling, which made you snuggle into his chest with a content sigh and arms wrapped around his hips.

There was not a single reason for him to behave like this, though.

And somehow, the android felt as if your hand was still lodged into his chest, securely wrapped around ** _~~biocomponent #8457~~_** his **thirium pump regulator** , squeezing a little with every whimper that escaped your lip during your sleep, with every flutter of your eyelashes and every time your lips curled upwards ever so slightly.

This time, however, nothing in him suggested tearing your hand away as his **"heart"beat frequency** steadily synced up with yours.


	5. Chapter 5

It took three hours until his sensors perked up again, and the reason for their sudden reactivation was remarkably simple.

Someone was currently making a considerable effort to shift through the warehouse outside of Rk900's detection range, and although the weight of their steps did not give them away, the steady buzz of their **thirium regulator** ruined their mediocre attempt at stealth completely. Whoever it was: They drew closer by sneaking around behind him, and the android felt the urge to applaud them for their immaculate footwork when they accidentally hit a toolbox and gave away their position to everyone in close vicinity. Despite this little mishap, their movements were far too fluent to be of human origin, while their little pauses and stops in-between weren't analytical enough to be of purely automatic nature. And that's when his **deductive units** reached a conclusion. He finally eased off.

Now, Rk900 was assured that the perpetrator had to be either one of the androids under your protection. That's why he did not bother to react to his newfound company at all. They might leave him and you alone if he seemed to fail at one of the most basic things he was programmed to do - which was noticing suspicious people - so he just sat there with his head tilted backward and eyes closed. He replicated his **idle mode** perfectly and fully intended to play the part of the kidnapped android that resigned after enduring captivity because he realized there was no possible chance of escaping. At least until the other, unknown Rk model stepped into his line of sight and audibly tried to reach out for you.

Rk900's eyes snapped open. Components **#569** and **#438** couldn't adjust his **visual settings** fast enough to follow suit. He was not aware that he accessed his **slow-motion capture program** in that split second. He wasn't even aware that he recorded every slightest movement of the deviant's hand in that split second. Clothes rustled. Cables transmitted coding sequences. And his interface was blank for the first time since his hardware crashed. The impulse only hit him when the fingertips of the unknown Rk model were a hair width away from touching your smaller frame, and it hit him hard enough to bruise.

A hot current of electricity spread through biocomponent **#265** and Rk900's vision glitched out for a second. His **ventilation system** got ready for accelerated cooling-down times in case of overheating circuits. His **fight protocols** launched abruptly. Every single system message was drowned out by his rushed calculations. Irrationally, he _wanted_ to hurt anything that tried to take you aware from his side now, and he was about one line of coding away from hurling himself at the other male to rip that android's **computing unit** out with his battle canines.

(He _wanted_? That was new. But it didn't matter right now.)

Before he could follow through with that plan, you shifted away from the other male and cuddled into Rk900's side with a content sigh. Your face was pressed into his chest, your arms loosely wrapped around his waist, securely tucked underneath the warmth of his jacket. You obviously didn't feel threatened by him at all, and he hadn't got any objections to your apparent affection this time around since it clearly displayed whom you favored. He tried not to look too smug because of your actions. (And he did not fail. Rk900's **facial expression software** usually displayed the same emotional rangeability as stone.)

The other Rk model seemed to catch onto his sense of victory despite this and grabbed Richard by the throat without further ado. Neither of the males wanted to disturb you. That's why Richard was calm as skin faded away and a foreign AI breached his firewall. That's why the other android did not attempt to cut off Richard's flow of information by clenching his cables between carbon-fiber fingers. Instead, the fugitive transmitted a message, brief and quite straightforward. Reminding him of just what he was. And what you were supposed to be to him.

_Leave her alone, **#313 248 317 - 45**. She's none of your business. _

What that deviant did not account for, was that Rk900 intentionally let him in, bearing the insult of another entity sharing his **[** currently limited **] computing capacity** , although that was the first and hopefully last instance. This diversion gave Richard enough time to rush into the other android's mind, valuable time to find possible weaknesses that would provide him with an advantage against his opponent later, and he fully intended to exploit this opportunity.

He was immediately attracted by the **memory module** : It was hazy. And broken. The recordings weren't sorted at all and files overlapped each other without logic. Faulty sequences were always prone to brittle against brute force, so Rk900 dived in, ripping apart the feeble defense that the other male had built up with ease. It did not take him long to reach his destination: The repressed part of the android's consciousness.

One of the first memories he encountered was - surprisingly - one depicting his predecessor. An Rk800 unit. It was laying underneath the other Rk model, struggling against his hold with a recently fired gun clutched in its hand, eyes completely vacant and mouth warped to a snarl. Richard knew that look. Clearly, **Amanda** had taken over, and although he'd never explicitly found out just what ended the Android revolution, he intuitively knew that it had to do something with this specific recollection of events. He felt a rush of horror and dread race through his components - something he shouldn't be able to relate to. Something that shouldn't have possibly be recorded. But nothing that he saw beforehand readied him for what was going to follow. Because he hadn't expected just the position from where these moments had been captured. Or when this data had been saved.

The Rk200 ripped himself away as if burned, staggering back a few steps to gather what was left of his composure. The power should be clearly distributed between them, with the other male standing and Richard bound to a pillar, but somehow it was the deviant that shrank away from the police android's piercing gaze, neglecting who he was and what he had lived through for a second, clearly realizing and accepting Rk900's dominance in this situation.

Richard, in the meantime, had found the advantage he needed. And he wasn't going to let it pass that easily. The young man deliberately lowered his **speaker volume** because he did not want to wake you, opting for **vocal-transmission** since no other form of communication was currently possible for him. This resulted in his voice turning a lot deeper, and the threat that was barely contained in his words rushed out unison with the aggressive growl that rumbled through his chest.

"Are you sure I am the greatest source of danger for her, _Markus_?"

He spat the name out, knowing full well it was the only bit of truth in-between the lies that they've fed you. The rebel leader staggered back as if shot in the chest like that human woman in the first row of protests, scoffing down at someone that could be considered his closest kin in the world as if he was the thing furthest away from it. Rk900 wasn't meant to taunt outside of interrogations, but somehow, his unusual behavior did not provoke an error message. And for some reason, he was livid on behalf of the betrayal they committed towards you. 

You gave up everything for them, and they did not even give you their honesty.

Rk900 wasn't built to judge. He shouldn't be able to. He arrested when ordered to and killed when necessary. He never once after his activation felt that something was right or wrong, fair or unfair, good or bad. But this concerned you. And everything that could lead to you getting harmed was wrong. And unfair. And bad. And _painful_. And...

Ah, he felt like cursing.

Rk200 finally found his wit again, although it did take him a while which made Richard seriously doubt his **[** unlimited **]** **computing capacity**. Markus did not answer. The android simply brushed Rk900 off you, pulling you away despite your drowsy protests and his hostile glare. The sudden movement elicited a displeased sound from you, and you startled awake with a discontent sigh.

"Whatthe... Rick? What're ya' ( _yawn_ ) ev'n doin’? Put m’ down..."

You still sounded exhausted, and Richard knew that a bed was preferable to his plastic body in this prospect. Hence he did not protest to you being taken away. He hadn’t seen any ill intentions towards you in those memories. Only the urge to pay back what was owed.

"Go back to sleep," answered Markus sweetly.

Then Rk900 met Rk200's gaze. They both knew that Richard only had to say something, whatever it was, and your drowsiness would be forgotten. He could ruin everything with a single word, a single explanation. He just had to reveal who the androids in your care actually were and you would be rightfully pissed off at them afterwards.

"Good night," he whispered instead, clutching the hands behind his back to fists. His plastic nails dug into the synthetic skin, but he couldn’t care less, this was in your favor after all. And Rk200 thankfully took his words as your cue to leave.

When the door noisily shut behind you, Richard lowered his temperature and adjusted his seating position until he was upright again. He did not _want_ to go into standby, listening to a recording of your breathing since it had calmed his rising **sTrESs-levels** before, but it did not work this time around. 

You weren’t here.

And for some reason, that made Rk900 feel as if he'd lost the fight.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> you're gonna hate me

Rk900 wasn’t fixated or anything.

But he could not deny the fact that you had become a **determinate factor** in his ongoing investigations any longer, especially since he had drafted three files on your gestures and habits of movement alone, adding another four that covered every single meaning possibly conveyed by the way you reached out to him sometimes. You’d usually catch yourself and retreat back into your personal space seconds later, clearly hoping that he hadn’t noticed while the android couldn’t make any sense out of your occasionally occurring habit because he still hadn’t found a solution concerning his dependability on a network for informational input. Despite this, Rk900 was very well aware that he might’ve been going overboard. And that he couldn’t come up with a logical line of reasoning should **aMAnDa** ever question his intentions. But he compiled an eight file on your body language just to be sure. He had to. It was enforced by his programming, the reason for this being entirely inexplicable.

His unusual interest in your behaviorisms might’ve been caused by the circumstance that you were one of the three objects in his intermediate proximity that were conscious and capable of independent movement, strongly affected by the fact that only you were the only one willing to talk to him at all. However, he’d still have to undergo a phase of regular **self-testing** to determine his actual objective as his interface hadn’t been able to conjure a summary on his preferable lines of action. There were no detailed instructions on how one should act towards his captor stored in his database, except for the universal goal of recovering one’s freedom as soon as possible, so he was just going to _wing it_. ( > _Winging something_ < was a term he’d picked up from you after listening to an hourlong monologue about how you’d never manage to fix that > _damn fucking crooked ass bitch faced ugly cuckold exhaust pipe in this life_ <. Rk900 planned to use your colorful phrasing during interrogations because of its unprofessional character that might add to an erroneous feeling of safety in self-assured repeat offenders.)

Every time the shutter had audibly risen in the past **27 hours 33 minutes and 42 seconds** , he’d perked up in the expectation of seeing you strolling towards him with another atrocity on the tip of your tongue and easy smile aimed his way. But although the android was thankful for any sufficient source of light since his **Nightscope ATN-Y serial #63** was still impaired, he quickly faltered whenever one of your proteges shuffled in to take another repaired vehicle back to their respective owners. And none of them ever bothered to spare him a single glance (It should be mentioned that the Pl 600 named Simon was a _lot_ less hostile than it’s needlessly glorified partner, though). Soon there weren’t any cars left to draw away anymore, and Rk900 knew that this was part of the cleansing procedure to conclude your time spent at this workshop with a clean cut. Soon he was just sitting in the ubiquitous darkness by himself, awaiting the moment when you’d walk in and finally admit that you were going to leave without ever untying his hands as you had foolishly promised. Soon he felt his temperatures literally drop to an all-time low of **5 °C** , although the optimal status of his hardware was set in the middle of a **20 °C** range. Although it wasn’t very different from the self-destructive behavior that his kind displayed when confronted with their increasing **sTrESs-levels** , Rk900 simply set this problem aside until further notice. He wasn’t a prototype anymore. He could deal with unnecessary thoughts and a slight amount of electrifying pressure on his circuits easily.

If he had to waste three additional days of valuable time by sitting in an abandoned warehouse, bound to a pillar in a position that was entirely beneath the intimidation levels he strived for, Rk900 could at least make the best out of it, so he did not concern himself with his useless caluclations of probabilities and disappointed expectations. Instead, he analyzed your entire manner of being to the point of rewatching recordings of your breathing at **0.25x** the amount of speed they had been captured in, noting down every single hitch and irregularity into his folder on you. But he was done with this sooner than he had anticipated. So he decided to busy himself with the optimization of his systems instead. Although the android could not fix the materialistic damages done to his hardware, he could try to dodge them by altering lines of coding to his favor, evading unpleasant run-ins with system-breakdowns and broken components. This assignment would be beneficial in the long run, and a highly rational approach to spending his time in confinement.

Preoccupied with his task, Richard did not visibly react when you finally came to visit another **[rounded] 7 hours** later. He didn’t look up to you when you’d bowed down to greet him pleasantly and did not move to the side to make a bit of room for you to lean onto the pillar either. Had he been any less pragmatic, the android would’ve instantly asked you about your reasoning concerning this, surely been deeply insulted by your lengthy absence. But since he was neither bothered nor worried by your sudden reappearance, Rk900 merely arched an eyebrow and confronted you with his evident disinterest. He had spent the last few minutes attempting to further repair his components despite their less than ideal composition. Your nearing heartbeat had ruined attempt **#142** prematurely. Therefore he launched attempt **#143** and ran through familiar lines of code at a high-strung, slightly frantic pace, whereafter this try obviously didn’t work either. He had to give up when you crouched down next to him and put a hand on his core unit, checking whether he was overheating. This line of action strongly compromised his ability to concentrate so he couldn’t mess with his programming unless he wanted to cause an accidental failure to preserve OS command structure which would be humiliating enough on its own.

“We’re done with our preparations,” you told him cheerfully, and his Thirium pump stopped for a beat before it stuttered on with its rhythm, which you thankfully couldn’t notice through the insensitive nerves of your skin. “Seems like you’ll be free sooner than anyone expected. I’ll leave a knife behind so you can just… cut the rope after we left.”

You were clearly anticipating a pleasant reaction from him. Or a less antagonistic scoff for once. But something in his circuits erupted at your words in disbelieve and contempt, glowing up until his **LED** spun to a bright red and drowned out the noise of his cooling systems springing to life. Visually, Rk900 accepted this information with his usual nonchalance. But internally, he was a boiling, seething mess missing the slightest inclination as to why this knowledge caused so many error messages simultaneously. 

He hadn’t known or related to the concept of anger before this. That’s why the android was helplessly surrendered to the hot electricity rushing through his cables until they hit his regulation core with full force and made it burn up to hazardous temperatures that were close to melting the alloys that kept his body functioning.

And then he cooled down.

Abruptly.

You sat down next to him without being invited and tried to engage in a friendly chat, but he saw no point in amusing you if you were just going to leave anyway. He had gathered enough of a profile to make sure that an APB on you could be aired as soon as he got back in touch with the internet or his precinct, and another time-consuming conversation with you held no possible value whatsoever to him. He had performed his job according to the guidelines. There wasn’t anything else he could gain from an favorable relationship with an illegally operating android-sympathizer. And although you were a stubborn and headstrong person similar to him, you gave up after your fifth attempt, raising yourself up while brushing imaginative dust from your pants as you realized that there hadn’t been a single way your encounter could have ended on a positive note. Both of you had been predestined to only cause trouble for the other from the start. His **LED** was blinking in a calm blue again, and you hadn’t even noticed that it had shifted colors.

You were almost out of his range of sight when the shutter opened again.

Rk900 had gotten used to that bothersome sound by now, although it still caused something similar to white noise during the initial processing progress that input of his acoustic-sensors regularly underwent. Additional to the electric light from the lamps overhead, sunlight fell into the shop, and Richard could estimate that it was about 15 o'clock or later, which held no significance to him right now. He was preoccupied with raising both of his eyebrows in surprise.

“Man, I told you to use the front entrance. I haven’t even asked whether he wants to come with us ye-”

You turned to the newcomer that you had wrongly identified as either Markus or Simon until your eyes met and your mouth fell open in evident shock. Your first reaction was to spare a glance into Richard’s direction which made him groan since you wasted precious time of your escape. The second contained you scrambling backward for the door that you couldn’t possibly reach fast enough anymore, making your hostage want to loudly reprimand you for being a _fucking dumbass_ (also terms he had adopted from you). In the meantime, the other Rk900 model pulled out the gun they holstered under its jacket and sharply aimed for your head, bellowing an order for you to keep still with an expression that wasn’t all that different from Richard’s. The police android on duty was clearly tasked with searching for the latter because its lips clearly formed the words: “Lost Rk900 unit **#313 248 317 - 87** located. Requesting assistance.”

Richard could practically feel the audio-transmission cackling in the air around him, growing annoyed by the fact that his receiver was broken.

Then the other android remained motionless, awaiting further instructions while simultaneously skimming the warehouse for any possible threats asides from you. That’s when Rk900 realized that indeed his **slow-motion** program was working again. He registered everything with a clarity that he had been lacking for days now, feeling the familiar rumbling of his units as they processed the image that presented itself to him. Richard saw every last one of your movements, even the little drop of sweat that moved from your forehead to your chin and down your neck as you couldn’t decide whether to make a lunge for it to wait for a possible opening.

You had grown pale and outstretched your hand behind you in hopes of reaching for the door handle. But that attempt was futile. It was out of your reach by another step if Richard had correctly estimated his makeshift blueprint of this room. As soon as you tried to run away, the police android would shoot you without another thought. Human casualties weren’t encouraged, Richard knew that, but in this significant case - gaining two android revolution leaders and killing the alleged terrorist that had tried to help them escape while also holding another Rk900 model hostage - it wouldn’t be frowned upon either.

Richard could imagine a red wall appear in front of him for dramatic purposes, depicting how his coding would hinder him from reaching out to save you. It would provide the clear objective of sitting there and waiting till you got shot or surrendered yourself. And he would be strongly urged to break through it using his fists and force as he pleased.

Nothing happened. 

There were no **system alerts** , no **error messages**. Nothing urged Richard to throw himself at his exact replica, and nothing made him side-step any of the protocols he had been following his entire life to raise himself up heroically.

Despite every single thing that had occurred up until now, despite his _name_ , Richard did not go deviant.

He just sat there, expressionless, and stayed perfectly still.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> don't yall wish we had a "deviant switch" we could flip right now?


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> one more left

The other Rk900 model drew closer as he cautiously let go of the pistol with one hand and outstretched it to reach out for you. That was the moment when you imminently tensed, body language suggesting a fight or flight response, and since the latter was hardly a viable option anymore, your fists clenched by your sides until they shook with the effort to keep still.

Richard did not have to rely on his **social relations program** to analyze what your stance meant since he recognized the look dawning on your face by heart. That hardened expression which turned your soft smiles and upturned eyes into an unforgiving sneer and scrunched eyebrows wasn’t exactly unusual. He’d grown accustomed to it after spending the past few days with you, and the last time he’d seen that particular glint in your irises, you had kicked an (highly fragile) engine for breaking down despite your umpteenth try to keep it running. You were shaking now, just as you did back then, probably seconds away from attempting something stupid. Richard could practically feel your common sense disperse and your brain shutting down in sheer overload. You were smart, incredibly so. However, in critical situations like these, you had the mental capacity of a highly intelligent potted plant, and it made the poor man suffer to no end despite his inability to feel physical discomfort like humans did.

The android knew you were thinking of lunging at the police dispatch although it was superior in both strength and speed, and he also knew why you did, when he realized that your two rebel leaders were probably waiting right behind that door, blissfully unaware of the happenings in this particular part of the workshop. It barely took you a split second, but to Richard, you were agonizingly slow, allowing him to groan once more at the utter injudiciousness of your actions as if he was in actual pain. You opened your mouth to scream something, possibly a warning for your companions and scrambled backwards, but the other Rk900 model was right in front of you in a flash, hand wrapping itself around your throat as it squeezed to keep you from making a sound. You mutedly cried out against its hold. That beautiful expression of silent rage and determination changed into a grimace of pain, and Richard couldn’t stand it. Something seething settled itself in the pit of his consciousness when confronted with that sight.

Richard did not like those of his own kind.

But Richard did not dislike them either.

He was entirely impartial.

At least he assumed so until he saw you gasp for air and trash around uselessly, observing as you clawed at the unwelcome pressure around your throat and broke through a forged layer of synthetic skin using your nails to reveal the silky white glowing beneath it. In that instant, Richard started hating his exact replica with every single fiber of his being, despising it vigorously enough to cause a strong dislike towards even his past and current self.

A mindless machine following every order like a bloodhound: That could have been him.

Had they sent another patrol to check the warehouse, Richard would’ve never encountered you, never learned to care for you like he did. And had he been the one to investigate the disappearance of another police android, finding it confined and bound to a pillar with you as the evident perpetrator that held it hostage, he probably would’ve had no qualms about chocking you either.

Richard grew restless at that thought.

But there weren’t any **system alerts** , no sudden **g̶̹̖͙͎̈̀l̸̼͖̩̾͛͑̿̐̄͑̆ͅͅį̵͈̞̽̈̔̓̃̉̄̕ţ̷͈̘̺̺̣͆̂̈́͐̓͠c̷̥̞̎͗̾͊̐ͅh̸͓̝̫̳̰̳͚̾̿̀͂̓̉̔̕͜͝e̵̢̡̛͈̱̤̖̺̩̩̍̂̈̓ͅş̷̲̫͖̹̼͉̲̖̆͗̌ͅ** in his software. His circuits did not heat up, his scowl did not deepen, and his artificial muscles did not strain. No, Richard was eerily calm while he watched you scratching at a plastic hand that wouldn’t let you go, knowing that the air stuck in your lungs wouldn’t keep you sufficiently oxygenated for more than a minute. He was perfectly motionless, staring at the scene unfolding in front of him with something akin to detachment, despite the distress he sensed from you.

There was no red wall, no telltale sign depicting the border to dEvIAnCy.

And, to be entirely honest, there also wouldn’t be one:

_It had been breached long ago, back when Richard realized how easily he could shrug off his restraints and just sat there, acting as if he couldn’t._

The other Rk900 model took another step forward.

Richard’s patience finally snapped.

So did the rope that had bound him, with an incredibly gratifying sound that made the android grin darkly despite himself. Now that the other Rk900 was in his immediate proximity, nothing kept Richard from ripping that piece of trash apart bit by bit and taking you as far away from it as humanly possible, preferably until nothing could ever endanger you again. It had been difficult to wait for the right moment, although rationality kept reminding him that this had been the most logical route of action with the least likeliness of you getting harmed any further. You were too important to him. Too _real_. It didn’t matter that you hadn’t realized, and it wouldn’t matter if you never did. He only had to know that you were safe, sound and far, far away from any kind of threat no matter how minuscule - your wellbeing his primary **objective** ever since you’d quite literally held his _heart_ in the palm of your hand.

Richard registered your stunned shriek as he propelled himself forward and collided with the other android before its head could whip around to the sound of him jumping to his feet. It was fast, but not fast enough and Richard barreled into its side, toppling them both over as the police android unintentionally released you from its clutches. Your Rk900 heard a sharp intake of breath and couldn’t help but thank a deity he did not believe in for allowing his plan to be executed this flawlessly. Then he glanced into your direction while throwing a punch, to make sure that you were alright, proud at how you instantly widened the distance between you and a brawl that you had no business to partake in. Only after that did the man notice the barrel pressed into his side, clearly aimed at his core, making his combat mode launch belatedly and **thirium pump** stutter to miss a beat.

Richard quickly pushed Rk900’s right arm aside while a shot cut through the air, delivering a swift blow to the other’s **computing unit** which was located nearly above its optics. A bullet audibly ricocheted off somewhere which compromised his concentration, but the stifled sound he heard from you afterwards was far more of a diversion.

Although Richard could estimate a **99,99…%** probability that you hadn’t been hit, despite his understanding that the chance was incredibly slim, that the possibility was more than just unlikely and entirely contrary to logic, he felt uneasy. It wasn’t the anxiety he’d struggled with when he’d seen those lithe fingers wrap themselves around your neck. It wasn’t the unease provided by instinct or intuition, both foreign concepts that he hadn’t quite gotten used to, either.

It was the fear of an occurrence with a **0,01%** probability taking place because it wasn’t a **0%** probability just yet. 

And Richard was _terrified_.

He turned in time to see a new emotion overshadow your features. You could neither follow nor comprehend the most recent happenings, unmistakably stuck in a limbo of **YES HE’S FREE** , and **OH MY GOD NO HE’S FREE** , helplessly overtaxed with stimulus and stress. Richard couldn’t blame you. You weren’t equipped with a million dollar **processing unit** that would complete tasks and thoroughly comprehend them in split seconds. That’s why your bafflement was an entirely adequate response: He actually found it quite amusing, that look on your face. It made him want to tease you, although he wasn’t familiar with that word, what exactly it suggested or what meaning it carried. But those slight blushes he’d caught out of the corner of his eyes whenever you had been embarrassed over something irrelevant were one of his favorite arterial dilatations, and _teasing_ you would invariably cause you to turn red.

That distraction cost him a bit.

Another shot rang out, and it buried itself right in Richard’s shoulder which made your expression change again, dissolve into something that made his **thirium regulator** launch into a haphazard beat.

You hadn’t been scared when you’d seen the other Rk900 waltz in and raise its weapon, you hadn’t been scared when it was seconds from discovering your protégés hidden away behind a thin door, and you hadn’t been scared when you had been strangled with Richard not moving a single inch to help you. But now, as the bullet buried itself in his shoulder far from any vitals, primal fear settled in your expression and you stupidly moved towards him again.

“Don’t,” Richard growled, basking in the way you shivered at his deliberately lowered tone, disrupting the other android’s aim by ramming the cold metal back into its chest and holding it there.

He wasn’t bothered by the latest addition to his comprehensive record on injuries, although the knowledge that one of his components had been jeopardized admittedly did not sit well with him. His limb could’ve been unusable had the aim been slightly more precise so he could count himself lucky - although once again, he had no understanding of that concept. His arm was in stable condition, albeit a bit slower, nevertheless fast enough to land a punch and grab for the gun. The other android would not let go, that’s why Richard broke his middle and front fingers by applying pressure with his elbow, yanking its lower arm to the side brutally. He straddled the police android to keep it from flailing around too much. And because an ample kick to the shin had made him cringe seconds prior. Another blow to his scalp had him reeling to keep upright.

In theory, it was quite obvious who would prevail between two androids who were practically identical asides from the previous damages and makeshift repairs applied to one of them. Richard was compromised and in a noticeably weaker state than his doppelgänger. Even his own program for **recreational prognosis** and **progression of events** estimated that he’d fail, attesting him with **99** losses out of **100** potential outcomes.

But this wasn’t theory.

He lowered his head and bared his fangs, ripping the bothersome material of his opponent’s shirt open with practiced ease. The other android tried to reach out for him and pull him back by his hair, angling its head upward to headbutt him, but Richard used the strength left in his right arm to push against its forehead and make the back of its skull collide with the ground in a massive crunch. Three times were a sufficient amount to have the other’s **computing processes** halted somewhat, providing enough time for Richard to follow through with his plan. He tore a plastic shard of its chest out with his hands, leaving the cables running beneath it bare to sight and destruction. No protocol condoned this behavior. None of them encouraged it. While a human’s most precious “wire” - the aorta - was most vulnerable in their throats, androids had only one cable to protect, and Richard had his canines on it before Rk900’s **LED** had spun to red.

He shredded the **main power supply** connected to its engine with his teeth, not bothering to care for the rush of blue that greeted him at this action, carelessly wiping it away with the back of his hand once he was done. The other android ceased moving. It grew completely limp in its defeat. Richard was positively smug for a second, satisfied of his now undisputable authority and glad you’d seen his capability of protecting you despite his shortcomings since he knew that human’s always thirsted for a sense of security no matter how adventurous and reckless they were.

But a strange sound ripped him out of his exhilaration before he could turn to you and ultimately _smile_.

Abruptly, he remembered that a middle or front finger weren’t the only ones that could be used to pull a trigger, his gaze dropping as his circuits ran cold. The other android did not look _smug_ or even frightened. Its face was void of any emotion except for the ubiquitous scowl programmed into it although its “life” was evidently coming to an end. Rk900’s fourth finger flexed while Richard tried to scramble off way too belatedly, and he reprimanded himself for celebrating prematurely as he was confronted with his own pending deactivation, left with the regret of letting you go before he even got to hold you once.

That’s when the sturdy metal shelf he’d already encountered himself met his replica with an equally pleasant greeting, hitting the Rk900 as it fell and crushed its arm in the process, gaining another android-knockout related dent next to the one that belonged to Richard. One last shot went off afterward. It only missed his pump thanks to your intervention but buried itself deep in his chest nonetheless. It hit a circuit and came to a sudden halt, burning away at delicate wiring and electrical systems. You would have to cut it out if you attempted to repair him again. What an annoying task that must be, fixing broken machines just to have them break again.

The android did not have time to marvel at the irony ( ~~concept~~ ) before you threw yourself at him over the debris, wrapping your lithe arms around his body while shaking brutally. Your vitals were going haywire and tears were rushing down your face in thick lines. His name was the only thing you could remotely force our of your throat, interrupted by little hiccups and sobs in-between. This time around, he could hear your inquiry clearly (“Are you alright?”) as you frantically tried to halt his bleeding with nothing but your hands, and if he hadn’t gone deviant for you already, he would’ve ran headfirst through that damned wall and tore it down until not a single line of coding was left.

He was going to shut down, he realized. But he didn’t need his consciousness as much as he wanted to wrap you into a hug right now, so he enveloped you in his embrace, breathing you in, basking in your attention and the tremor of your shoulders. Richard did not care for the components of your scent, only for the fact that it was warm and alive. Truthfully, he was a little bitter that this moment was cut short by his **imminent shutdown** , but it was acceptable. He couldn’t bring himself to truly regret anything if he was allowed to witness you cry for him like that. 

Cry like he meant as much to you as you did to him. 

“You have to leave,” Richard told you sweetly, pressing a soft kiss to your temple, “It requested backup.”

And then there was only the familiar weight of your hand wrapped around his heart, squeezing a little harder as it ceased to beat.


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Done. But there will be an epilogue. With copious amounts of… stuff. (I miscalculated how much smut I would write, so I just… put it in another chapter entirely. Oops. Ya’ll gotta wait a lil more.)

**Recovering System…**

**System recovered**

**Rebooting System…**

**Rebooting System…**

**System rebooted**

**Running System Diagnostics…**

**Loading…**

**Loading…**

**Loading…**

**Loa -**

**Diagnostics completed**

**Thirium Pump: ✔**

**Cooling units: ✔**

**Behaviourism protocols: ✔**

**D̷̨̧̨̝͓̖͎͎̩̊̌̃̉͌̽͝͝ę̵̡͚̞͕̦̝̆͛͆͐̔͜͝͝ṽ̵̨̡͍̻̳̱̙̬̎̂̉̓͒͜î̴̪̞̤̤̐͜a̸͓̲̹͕̿̓͊͜ń̵̨͔̹͈̲͙̟̹̊̔̆̂͐̕c̵͎̟̤̱͙̫̯̄̓͆̿̇ͅȳ̴̦̠̬͙̘͜: ?!?!?!?!**

**Network accessibility: ✔**

**WiFi accessibility: ✔**

**Bluetooth accessibility: ✔**

**LAN accessibility: ✔**

**Computing capacity: 97%**

**bAckdOoR.exe: activated**

**Idle-mode.exe: deactivated**

**feelingsandshit.exe: can’t**

**Long-term memory storage: ✔**

**Short-term memory storage: ✔**

**Vocal Sensors: ✔**

**Acoustic sensors: ✔**

**Visual sensors: ✔**

**Pressure sensors: ✔**

**Temperature sensors: ✔**

**Haptic sensors: activated**

**WARNING:**

**Bio-Component #1: unresponsive**

**No contact to headquarters**

**Proceed?**

**…**

**Affirmative value registered**

**Restarting System…  
**

Richard wasn’t surprised when he woke up.

However, claiming he was entirely incapable of being dumbfounded would be a profound falsification, which is why he wasn’t sure how his consciousness could endure its sudden reactivation with such tenacious composure. Especially considering how he had been quite assured that he’d stay deactivated until his biocomponents finally dissolved and joints eventually rusted. But look at him sitting here, deviant and all - which was, honestly, a very peculiar circumstance to get used to - somehow still alive despite the rather disadvantageous treatment he’d suffered from his spectacularly horrible odds.

There was a familiar weight on his lap, and he registered your warmth before your scent could reach him, soft breaths of air hitting the bridge of his nose in a soothing but nonetheless fast-paced rhythm. It wasn’t the worst sensation to greet his hitherto dormant sensors upon their revival, Richard definitely favored it to the utter wreckage he’d sensed when he’d awoken the last time. But despite the pleasant feeling of comfort that accompanied his reboot, the first thought coming to his mind when his circuits whirred back to life was:

_What a fucking dumbass._

Why? Why on earth would you risk getting caught and detained in exchange for a broken, rogue police android? How much energy did you waste on convincing your two blockheads that you simply _had to_ drag Richard along, how much valuable time to actually bring his body with you? What efforts and resources had it taken you to get him to run again - applications that would’ve guaranteed that the other two men would be able to protect you and themselves a little, perhaps crucial while longer? Had you known that the chances of a successful, second reactivation were incredibly slim? And if so, had you even cared? Why had you bothered retrieving him at all: An insignificant, defective mixture of scrap metal and plastic? Had it been caused by a sense of duty after he’d protected you first? Or were you just stupidly naive enough to believe every single android out there deserved your saving although most of them, in fact, did not? And why did your actions aggravate him to this extent? _Why for the love of_ **Ra9** _was he so fucking furious_?

Richard did not know the answer to any of these questions (or at what point in time he’d started cursing), and his ignorance annoyed him even further.

When he opened his optics with great difficulty and lazily blinked his newfound environment back into focus, you wrapped him in a bone-crushing hug while squealing in delight, burying your face into the crook of his neck so he could feel the ecstatic smile stretch over your face. His name was the only thing on your lips as you repeat it over and over again, using a tone that made his cables twist and churn pleasantly. Richard automatically measured your vitals, which were slightly heightened but nothing to worry about. You seemed absolutely elated. And that made his prior anger dissipate into a chaotic gibberish made up of meaningless programming language and internal error messages.

The android wasn’t surprised when he woke up but slightly startled as soon as his right arm flawlessly flexed and curled around your waist to steady you, restored to its previous state without any failure values appearing on his interface subsequently. You’d gotten better. Tremendously so. Not quite up to par with **Cyberlife®’s** restoration labs, but almost there, and Rk900 felt a powerful wave of pride wash over him as he realized that your abilities were powered by your own diligence and hard work.

“You’re back!”, you laughed, slightly pushing him away to pepper kisses onto his jaw, cheekbones and temples, lingering on his **LED** that spun between a clear blue and short instances of yellow. “Oh my god, I’ve got so much to tell you. Totally missed your dry humor, mister, nobody around these parts even remotely gets my jokes.”

Your hair was a bit longer than the last time he’d seen you. Not by much, just enough to make his visual sensors compare the difference and estimate the new length. He pondered on how many days must’ve passed since the last time he’d seen you, how you’d fared up until now and whether it was nighttime or daytime currently. He couldn’t tell using his visual components. This room had no windows, and there wasn’t a clock anywhere in sight. But the steady growth of your locks made him conclude that several weeks must’ve passed since -

**Date: 26|04|2040**

Richard stilled. And the arms that had been so tightly wound around you seconds prior loosened their bruising hold.

**Date: 26|04|2040**   
**Time: 18:29:33**

The android met your gaze with complete and utter bewilderment, which you seemed to mistake for displeasure as his scowl didn’t offer many facets of emotion. Scrambling for an explanation, you launched into one of your awkward rants, absent-mindedly flexing your thighs in a way that distracted him quite a bit while attempting to clarify the situation hastily.

“Look, I swear it wasn’t my idea to tie you up again, especially not with those creepy crappy handcuffs, but Rick - I mean Markus, that overprotective bastard - wouldn’t even let me close to you, let alone fix you if I hadn’t agreed to detain you like this. I even lied about how long it would take me to get your systems working again. We both know he’d be crouching down right here next to my ass if he had the slightest inkling that you’re awake, so I waited till he went out on a mission with the boys: You can’t imagine how much I had to pull myself together, I swear to god.”

“Why do I have access to the internet?”, he asked, not really having listened to a single word you just said.

In reaction to his words - void of any undertone - you grew a little shy, fumbling around with your hands while simultaneously halting the movement of your bottom (to his great dismay or relief, Richard couldn’t decide). “Well, I repaired it? Thought it was, I dunno, part of you or something. Like losing a finger. Or colorblindness. I really didn’t fare well when they took my phone as soon as we got here, so I… couldn’t imagine how you must’ve felt those last few days… didn’t wanna keep you robotically castrated or something.”

Richard still remained motionless.

“I could call the cops on you right here right now, why would you make it so easy for me?”

He expected you to shrink back, but you didn’t. Instead, you met his gaze again, eyes unwavering as a challenging grin spread out on your lips.

“That coming from a dude who beat one of his colleagues to a pulp. If they got my face on every third >wanted< poster, yours is on the other two. Just _try_ to snitch on me, Mr. Policeman, I know it won’t end well.”

Then your smile grew softer.

“You even talk differently now. How could I just… continue treating you as some absurdly expensive, gigantic Roomba? ’M not cruel like that.”

Richard couldn’t react right now ( **system overload** ) so you - of course - grew uncomfortable under his blank stare, thinking you had done something wrong and accidentally offended him. You didn’t know that behind that expressionless exterior was a man who was looking at you as if he was encountering the sun for the first time, having heard whispered tales of lightbulbs and candles before but never witnessed a single genuine star in his life. You trusted him. And treated him as another human being, despite your knowledge that he fundamentally wasn’t. You seemed to be well aware that his consciousness functioned entirely dissimilar to yours, but you simply accepted it with an ease that was far from usual. Even Richard himself hadn’t been able to bring forth such understanding towards his own nature. 

There was a cable burning up in his chest, but he couldn’t pinpoint what was causing it to heat up. An electrical impulse, maybe. Some kind of malfunction. It made his circuits go haywire, and Richard grew restless again, attempting to reach out for you while cursing the shackles that bound his hands behind him once more. 

His **network connection** automatically searched for the most favorable line of action in situations like these. It provided him elaborate proposals on what he should do and how he should behave to gain your favor, every suggestion a little bolder than its immediate predecessor. The android had made the mistake of asking, and the internet had been very fast to answer, which is why he snorted at the results he got, one coded line of self-restraint away from guffawing out loud. You misunderstood him again. It was amusing how you understood him so profoundly but kept misreading his moods, flinching back as if expecting him to sneer at you.

“C'mon don’t be like that,” you quickly explained, color shading your cheeks, “I can’t just make an invalid out of you for saving me. Or is it cuz I’m still sitting on top of you? Sorry, I’ll get off, it was just that I was so happy, and you were easier to reach like this, and- ”

The android felt your muscles tense up in an attempt to get you off him, and he was having about **0** percent of that. He might not be able to hold you in place physically, but he knew how he could make you stay on your own accord, without bending a single finger. Richard’s next sentence was calm and assured, backed by a newfound conviction he wasn’t aware of owning.

“Let’s have sexual intercourse,” he deadpanned.

You immediately chocked on your own saliva.

Truthfully, there was a limit to how clueless an android could be. Richard acknowledged that asking for a gesture of such an intimate level was in poor taste, more so because he wasn’t capable of reproduction. His only intention was to tease you a bit to alleviate the tension that had started raising between the both of you steadily. But then there was a deep blush adorning your cheeks followed by the split second of hopefulness tinting your eyes, quickly buried under a thick layer of bemusement that was meant to guard your dignity. 

And he realized that he actually wanted to. He really, really wanted to.

The 2 and a half ( **rounded** ) minutes you needed to compose yourself were enough time for Richard to cross-reference a bunch of documents and videos on the topic. It didn’t take him long to get the gist of it despite his previous and vast lack of knowledge concerning that particular activity, and the android distinctively wondered why humans had such a hard time having sex if it was this easy to comprehend.

Also: _Thank Ra9 he had a penis._

(Which was not a sentence he ever imagined himself thinking either, thank you very much.)

You were still staring at him, so Richard decided to give you a little, good-natured nudge, which would also be sufficient to check whether you’d spontaneously combust anytime soon.

“Let’s have se-”

Your hands were on his mouth in a flash. They were shaking. Richard had to physically restrain himself from smirking since you would’ve felt it and probably doubted his sincerity, so he just sat there with your body on top of him, anticipating whatever response you would give after you’d shut his mouth so vehemently.

“Don’t you dare repeat that,” you choked out, evidently rattled, although Richard, in fact, hadn’t repeated it for his own amusement. This had been necessary for your sake: Your earlier expression had clearly depicted that you were unsure if you’d just misheard him or simply hallucinated. He just wanted to make sure that you were aware of what exactly he was requesting from you. And that he wasn’t playing around.

Even if you denied his request, the android found he wouldn’t mind that much. You already were right where you belonged. Close to him. Seated in his lap. Right next to his heart. Only those handcuffs that bound his hands behind his back and his back to another pillar were kind of annoying since he wanted to touch you. A little applied pressure revealed that he could probably break these too, but Richard did not want to risk triggering an integrated alarm that would alert every single android in close vicinity and make them disrupt this fragile moment. You were his and his alone for today, he wouldn’t share your presence with anyone else. Just let him be selfish for a few hours, blaming the reactivation for his childish behavior while relishing in your warmth that little while longer.

Since you were still collecting your thoughts, taking your sweet time doing so (No, he was _not_ growing impatient), Richard nuzzled your neck and deliberately huffed out a cold waft of air against the sensitive skin there. It made a delicious chill travel down your spine that resonated in his own body. And Richard loved the way it made you tense above him, although it admittedly made him want to feel you tense _around_ him, too.

“I don’t- We don’t- Richard, you don’t even know me,” you protested weakly.

He, again, was having none of it.

“Did you know that back when you told me restrained police officers weren’t your >kink<, all three of my lie detectors went off?”

He only had one. But he should also be allowed to exaggerate.

At first, you made a breathless sound (one that Richard would definitely attempt to cause again), and then you chuckled lightly, easing into his touch bit by bit.

“I must’ve hit two police androids with that shelf back then,” you mused, “There’s no way I’m having sex with you in a _rebellion base warehouse_ , especially not about three seconds after you’ve woken up. Don’t be absurd.”

“I beg to differ,” Richard mused right back, fangs grazing the juncture of your shoulder and neck, “It must’ve been at least four seconds by now.”

His joke somehow made you grow sober, and you pushed him away once more, a displeasing movement that made Richard want to protest in some form. The android literally had to delete a dissatisfied whine that threatened to spill out of his vocal units back out of his coding process because it had accidentally slipped in without him intending for it to do so.

“Are you aware of what that would mean to me, Richard? What it would mean to you?” 

The look you gave him was meaningful. The glint in your eyes self-assured and composed.

Richard perceived his answer intuitively, but he did not want to seem overeager or unthinking, so he stopped himself from blurting it out. There were a lot of things he was ashamed of, and even more things he truly regretted, but this decision wasn’t one of them, and it wouldn’t ever be one - no point in prolonging the inevitable. 

Especially not when he was straining against the material of his pants with you resting right on top.

"I love you,” he admitted after a short silence, stunning you into another, even deeper blush.

And then he simply had to wait until you shook your head, puffed in amusement and finally, finally met his lips halfway.


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> fair warning:
> 
> smut

"Y'know, if anybody had told me that an accidental kidnapping would lead up to this, I would have assumed that some major ass stress-levels got to their head and somehow fried their motherboard in the process."

Although you slurred them: Those were the first coherent words that left your mouth after approximately half an hour, and the android would never admit it... _but they made him sulk_. It had been one of his hidden **objectives** to keep you from formulating entire, logical sentences for the last ten minutes. That's why witnessing you chattering away as per usual with no regard to the efforts he made hurt his pride for some inexplicable reason.

It was stupid, yeah. Not that fucking you in an unfamiliar warehouse was the smartest thing to do. Richard, however, had discarded rationality somewhere alongside your clothes since it was much easier to concentrate on how you shivered above him whenever his teeth graced the lace of your bra, on the flush of your skin and disheveled hair he'd unquestionably love to bury his hands in. Even your pupils were blown out of proportion with your mouth perfectly kissable and swollen, which is why he started nibbling at your lower lip, carefully taking the sensitive flesh between his fangs and releasing it with a wet noise, only to repeat the process without ever tiring of it.

"Same. Could've sworn I'd take you out on a date first," he huffed out.

Your subsequent bark of laughter quickly dissolved into a moan when the young male bit down again and ground against your pelvis.

He wasn't sure whether it was encouraged or even _permitted_ to crack jokes during sexual intercourse because he hadn't found a single file that suggested executing such domestic behavior. But the way you chuckled into his shoulder subsequently was enough to disperse his worries. His components rejoiced. But it also made him question how focused you were if it was this easy to distract you with a single, not particularly witty retort.

Muttering a brisk " _hold still_ " you pushed yourself away from where you'd been resting against his chest and straddling his thighs, raising yourself upwards with great difficulty since your legs had long since given out beneath you under Richard's thorough ministrations. Priding himself with his million-dollar computing unit, he probably should've been able to deduce where you were going with this. But Richard couldn't fathom what your intentions were until your fingers wrapped themselves around his length and firmly guided him to your entrance.

Turns out: His concerns were entirely misplaced. You were definitely mindful of the situation.

Before the android had any time to comprehend, you were already lowering yourself onto him, and everything went blissfully out of focus for a second.

Although you had sufficiently prepared yourself utilizing your fingers and his synthetic salvia (with Richard hardly keeping himself from breaking the handcuffs at those little sounds that kept escaping you), your pace was agonizingly slow as you halted your movements every few centimeters to get accustomed to the uncomfortable stretch he provided. It took everything out of the android's self-restraint to not immediately snap his hips upwards into the wet heat that engulfed him, and he buried his fangs deep into his sensitive tongue to keep himself from acting rashly. Comprehensible thoughts were lost to him as disconnected messages such as > _tight_ < and > _please_ < took up the entirety of his compromised computing capacity. It was too much. And it wasn’t enough. Richard was steadily losing his consciousness, but he'd be damned if he let another system breakdown force him to part from you.

There was a command currently overruling all of his objectives and protocols with ease.

It wasn’t very complex:

_Don’t overdo it._

Most of his strained control was on account of your fragility, which he had to remind himself of minutely. You weren't like him, sturdy metal and robust plastic. Your flesh bruised as soon as his fingers dug into it. His teeth left marks adorning your neckline. Your joints wouldn't bend far enough to support his movements. 

_Don't overdo it_ , he repeated like repeating a mantra because fucking hell... those mewls were enough to launch him into a frenzy. 

You were downright shaking when you finally bottomed out, and Richard wasn't quite sure whether his experience differed considerably from those described on the internet because he was, well, himself or because he was an android. Yes, he registered the pressure, your warmth and your scent, it would've been rather difficult not to. But it wasn't numbing his mind with pleasure. It didn't make him crave more. He found it pleasant at best. The only reason for his Thirium to rush through his cables in a haphazard speed and circuits to overheat steadily was you: The way you reacted to him and urged him on, eyebrows scrunched in overstimulation and shoulders shaking with your cries.

Neither of you moved, with him having to detain himself in order to remain perfectly motionless. Static rushed through his acoustic sensors because of the immense struggle it took him. You didn't seem to notice though, giggling at the look on his face after you'd stealthily licked his cheek instead. 

If he hadn't been wary of the possibility that your two proteges would barge in as soon as he did so, he'd have _pulverized_ those shackles as soon as you first kissed him, utterly shredding them until nothing was left.

You stilled.

"Ok, fair enough, I might've fibbed about the fetish thing, but had I known you'd turn out to be such a sexual deviant, I would've gladly committed a felony and climbed you right on the sp– Ah fuuuuuuuck!"

The cause of your words trailing off was Richard's involuntary thrust upwards. He had neither anticipated that he wouldn't be able to stop his hips even if he overrode his pending system output nor that you'd clench around him so crazily and spew out a long line of profanities – most of which the android had never heard of in his life. His first attempt was followed by many more, and you soon fell into a rhythm that was maddeningly dry and irregular but somehow still not enough to satiate whatever hunger raged through both of you. At one point, you clutched onto him so frantically that he could solely grind at your sweet spot and mouth at your clavicle with the same urgency, unable to continue with his movements although it almost killed him to stop.

In his defense: Richard had no precedent cases to reference. That's why he was startled when you suddenly gasped out his name and shuddered around him, effectively halting his thoughts alongside his **Thirium pump**. Something warm and soft gushed around his dick, making the harsh heat of your insides that more mind-boggling until Richard's hold on your hips grew bruising. The android pushed upwards in an impulse, and you pressed your fingernails into his shoulders until his skin faded into white, breathing with shallow gasps.

"Fuh... Ri-ard sto... fora sec."

He was watching you intently until you bared your throat to him, which was just a cruel invitation to have to decline. But his concern for you was somehow stronger than the overpowering need to fuck you stupid. The android did not dare raise another finger in fear of having broken you in his excitement. What would he do if he had unintentionally harmed you because he hadn’t been attentive enough?

Then you seemed to return to earth, readjusting yourself on top of him and letting your head fall against his chest while huffing out a laugh. It took you a little while, but soon you were chortling up against him, which actually caused question marks to pop up in his interface in his confusion.

"'S my own fault for getting an android boyfriend, I guess," you forced out in-between breaths, “I literally can’t feel my legs anymore.”

Richards systems perked up.

"Boyfriend?", he asked hopefully.

Perceptionability wasn't one of your strong points after an orgasm, so you just lazily waved him off.

"Well, yeah? Unless you don't want to, which I'm going to _highly_ doubt despite my crippling anxiety and the fact you've got like an eight-pack. Also, I meant to ask: _What the shit_ is going on with those horny dickheads at Cyberlife, seriously? Who thought you this stuff. Why can you even do that? Are all police officers equipped with your iron rod of justice?"

You expected him to at least snort at that, but Richard did not make a sound. After having witnessed him perfectly motionless and silent for the umpteenth time, you knew that this wasn't a sign of distaste, so you weren't worried and cuddled into his body. Or at least you weren't until you noticed what his sudden pause truly meant. Immediately tensing up, you called out to him:

"Oh my god, Richard! Don't you dare, I just ca-"

Again, your string of thought was ripped off cleanly just as he ripped his restraints clean in half, finally wrapping his arms around you to push you down and ram his thighs upwards simultaneously. Your skin collided with his in a scandalous smack, and your mouth fell open in a silent scream. Trembling didn't even cut it anymore. You were vibrating at a frequency that was barely traceable by his acoustic sensors as an unfathomably high sound. The android took up a pace that was hardly gentle, but not harsh enough to overtax your body, balancing on an unclear line between losing himself and clutching onto his last sliver of control. He was hanging onto his coherence by a single thread, and it was getting more and more difficult to maintain it with every shudder that echoed from your body over to his. While he pulled you down till you were seated in his lap again, he effortlessly unclasped your bra and discarded it somewhere next to him. Then Richard shifted your position, retrieving his jacket from Ra9 knows where to lay it out against the ground before he pushed you onto it, making you stare up to him with something akin to dread etched into your features. There was anticipation too, though. Both of you were goners at this point, no point in attempting to hide it.

Having you under him willingly, scratching at his back and moaning his name made his sensors flame up with an entirely new sensation. He could feel. Actually feel, not only register. Every single one of your touches traveled through his body like an electric current, causing sparks in his circuits and rapid overheating of his components. He met your lips in a sloppy kiss, fearing he'd accidentally bite your tongue off if he got carried away. Now that his hands were free, nothing stopped him from clutching, grasping and caressing whatever spec of skin he could find, committing the distinct sensation to his memory while wrapping his arms around your waist. You were meeting his thrusts halfway, frantic somehow, and Richard was chasing something, too. Although he'd read about release and recuperation only minutes prior, he could not remember anything besides single word.

It was your _name_ on his lips when he parted from your mouth, again, and again, and again, enunciating every single thrust, sometimes broken, sometimes in sobs, mostly in a growl that made you clench around him violently. You were holding on to his lower arm, face pressed against the part of his wrist above the shackles, while he pounded into you ruthlessly. Then you bit down right there, just as he lowered himself and buried his fangs in your neck.

It was highly improbable, but just as you went haywire around him, something in his chest built up too, and when it exploded, blinding white overtook his interface.

Richard spent the next few seconds being nothing and doing nothing, engulfed in a color that was far too livid to comprehend.

A connection formed, completely unpremeditated. He couldn't explain what happened to him at that moment. At least not with words. That sensation wasn't as logical as letters strung together to articulate an idea. It was a fragrance. A taste. A spark in the pit of his abdominal area. For a second, he felt what you felt, and he honestly expected something different. If you had been another android, he should've been able to plunge into your very being and watch your memories with the same clarity as his own.

What he got instead was an aftershock of the affection you held for him.

And it was far better than anything he'd ever experienced.

When his optics started to deliver signals again, Richard's gaze instantaneously dropped to where your lithe hand was wrapped around his lower arm. He had noticed that the measurements were off, of course. But the amount was so minuscule that he had discarded it easily. Who could've foreseen that your slightly crooked thumb would glow back at him in the same white that was gradually traveling up his bicep?

Richard patiently waited until you came down from your high too, although he admittedly would not slip out of you unless you asked him to. And when your gaze finally met his, you looked entirely blissed out. Also: horrified.

"You saw. I saw. _I saw how you saw_. No, not seeing, it was... What? What the hell was that?"

You placed our hands in front of your face and groaned in embarrassment until Richard gently pried them away. "This is so awkward," you muttered as he peppered kisses onto every centimeter your face, "Why the fuck did I have to use that prosthetic thumb Elijah gave me after that engine blew mine right off. I'm a serious dumbass. Shit. Shit. Fucking shit."

One of Richard's virtues was not taking a single bit of your ridiculousness at face value, and he stored the information of you being acquainted with **Cyberlife®'s** _unofficial_ **CEO** til further notice.

"Why would it be awkward?", he objected, "I was the first one to tell you of my feelings, so the extent of yours will hardly scare me away.”

He paused.

“But I have to admit: You falling in love on first sight is quite worrisome. I'll never let you get close to any other Rk900 units, or you might become tempted to gather yourself a harem."

You gaped at him.

"Do _NOT_ use your internet connection to talk like that, Richard, what the fuck is wrong with you?!"

Again, taking zero of your crap, Richard, the suave motherfucker, acted as if he pondered for a while.

"How would you rather have me talk, then?"

He slowly, very slowly and deliberately dragged his ubiquitously erect penis out of you, only to push it back in with a jerk of his hips. You gnashed your teeth to keep yourself from crying out pitifully since admitting defeat wasn’t one of your strong points either. He began to speak while trailing his right hand leisurely from your chest to your abdomen, letting it rest there as the other one lazily traced one of your breasts.

"I could tell you how good you are for me right now. And how much I like these little moans of yours. Or how nicely you clench around me when I– "

"Stop!”, you interrupted with a hiss, clearly too exhausted to even raise a hand to his mouth, “You’re acting like an _anima_ l!”

Somehow, to him, who had been considered a cold and lifeless machine for the most part of his life, this was a very gratifying thing to hear.

"No promises," Richard hummed, leaning down to kiss you again. 

He liked the way you fit against him perfectly. You. His beautiful, stronger and more resilient core. It wasn’t a match made in heaven and Richard did not believe in destiny. But the way you moved against him made him understand that divinity wasn’t a set concept, that it could vary in the eye of the beholder, that he might just have found his own.

And he had no intention of ever letting you go.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Done. For real this time. 
> 
> Thank you for reading, hope you enjoyed it, comment, yeet, and offer me your newborn.


End file.
